Bonnie Jo Campbell

Pearl Ruled: ONCE UPON A RIVER by BONNIE JO CAMPBELL (p82)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Bonnie Jo Campbell has created an unforgettable heroine in sixteen-year-old Margo Crane, a beauty whose unflinching gaze and uncanny ability with a rifle have not made her life any easier. After the violent death of her father, in which she is complicit, Margo takes to the Stark River in her boat, with only a few supplies and a biography of Annie Oakley, in search of her vanished mother. But the show more river, Margo's childhood paradise, is a dangerous place for a young woman traveling alone, and she must be strong to survive, using her knowledge of the natural world and her ability to look unsparingly into the hearts of those around her. Her river odyssey through rural Michigan becomes a defining journey, one that leads her beyond self-preservation and to the decision of what price she is willing to pay for her choices.

My Review: Oh heavy, heavy sigh. I cannot make myself read more of this beautifully crafted book. Campbell's trademark gorgeous sentences are not enough to propel me any further into the life of sixteen-year-old Margo Crane. I don't want to read about Margo's consensual sexual adventures with an adult man.

I just don't.

But let me tell you what's right with this book: The writing. Oh. Oh. Campbell is describing a harsh and unjust world in words that make me vibrate like a tuning fork that's just found its note. Campbell's descriptions of Michigan make me ache to see it for myself. Her deft, cruel characterizations are inarguably fine...nice, in the original sense of the word...I don't want to use the word "precise" because that conjures the spectre of Henry James, and that scares people off, but precise they are.

I hate like poison that the beauty of the book, its lovely wideness and its supremely inviting lushness, are closed to me by my own shuddering disgust for teenaged girls and heterosexual congress. But that, I fear, is where I am and what I feel.

DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A WARN-OFF!! I recommend to the straight people who like gorgeous writing and coming-of-age stories that this book rise to the top of the pile immediately! If it's your first try at a Bonnie Jo Campbell book, so much the better, and so much the more exciting for you. She is a talent to be savored and supported with book purchases. show less

American Salvage is a collection of short stories by author Bonnie Jo Campbell. She writes about rural, working class people of Michigan, people who once thought they could attain the American Dream but have long since given up and become the broken, damaged and discontented who can’t see beyond the downward spiral that their life has taken.

Although this was not a comfortable read, the author writes stories that are detailed, heart-felt and peopled with characters that feel authentic and show more real. This is an author who knows how to explore the lives of the desperate and drug-addicted and in doing so, reaches into the heart of America with some painful truths about what life is like for those who found themselves falling short.

As with all short story collections, I found some of these stories resonated a little more strongly with me than others, but overall the depth and richness of her writing, the poignant and painful lives she reveals, and the eye-opening rust belt mentality she describes make American Salvage a riveting and unique read. show less

MOTHERS, TELL YOUR DAUGHTERS: STORIES, by Bonnie Jo Campbell.

There are sixteen stories here and if there is any unifying theme to be found it may be that men are untrustworthy, lying, "cheating, troubling sons of bitches ("The Fruit of the Pawpaw Tree")." Which is, essentially, what mothers should probably tell their daughters. Because the women who tell these stories have all, in one way or another, been beaten, molested, raped, abused, and abandoned by men who took what they wanted and show more then left. And most of them, like Jill, an adjunct professor, mother of four daughters (the youngest unwed and pregnant), finds herself pregnant again at 47 by her faithless professor husband who dallies with young students, are "not feeling terribly sympathetic toward the male of any species just now" ("Daughters of the Animal Kingdom").

The women who are on the receiving end of this brutal-to-indifferent treatment react in various ways. Some are mostly passive, choosing to re-paint their lives in pastel colors of love, like Sherry, a single mother whose much younger lover runs off with Sherry's teenage daughter ("Somewhere Warm"). Then there is the unnamed narrator in "To You, As a Woman," who is treated like an animal, abused and raped, but keeps on doing whatever she has to do to take care of her two young children. Almost all of these women, of course, are going it on their own, discards of men, and often of society itself. Denizens of the hard-scrabble unemployed or just barely making ends meet, they are, many of them, struggling desperately to get by.."

My favorite here is a story that doesn't fit this mold, "Children of Transylvania, 1983" about a woman biking through Romania. Very different from the others.

Campbell established herself firmly as a spokesperson for broken, damaged, abused women in her earlier book, AMERICAN SALVAGE, and she continues to give them a voice in this new collection. She has an uncanny and unerring ear for the way these women speak, and gives voice to their most secret and unspoken thoughts. And despite the grim subject and settings, she also displays a dry and often ribald sense of earthy humor.

I like the way Bonnie Jo Campbell writes. She knows her subjects and she knows her way around a good sentence and the English language. It's her subjects and this unrelenting theme of "men as bastards" that makes me uncomfortable. Which makes me wonder if that makes her a "women's writer." Because I know other men who feel the same way about her work - uncomfortable, a bit squirmy, maybe. So here's the thing. This is five-star writing. But, frankly, I was just a bit relieved to come to the end of these stories. So I can't really say I loved it. Hence my 4 stars. Having said all this, highly recommended, because this woman can write! show less

Bonnie Jo Campbell does down-and-out characters very well -- and she hits another bull’s eye with her portrayal of Margaret Louise Crane in her latest book. Sixteen-year-old Margo is a true river sprite who feels most at home in nature. She doesn’t talk much but knows the language of sexuality and how to use it to get what she needs. She acts like a woman but has the heart of a girl who has suffered a loss and wants to find her missing mother.

This book is part fairy tale and part show more odyssey. It is a beautiful story about a wild girl who doesn’t want to be tamed. Ms. Campbell has taken the story of Annie Oakley and given it a modern slant. It makes for a good read about a comely maiden who is sorely abused and escapes to search for her mother and ends up finding herself. I didn’t always like Margo, but I ended up respecting her for knowing herself and not giving up on the life she was meant to live. show less